Michael Connelly - The Reversal

“Sustained. Would you like to rephrase, Mr. Royce?”

“Thank you, Your Honor. Ms. Atwater, you have no idea-other than what you were perhaps told-how the hair you tested found its way into the tow truck, correct?”

“That would be correct, yes.”

“So you can identify the hair as Melissa Landy’s but you cannot testify with the same sureness as to how it ended up in the tow truck, correct?”

I stood up again.

“Objection,” I said. “Asked and answered.”

“I think I will let the witness answer,” Breitman said. “Ms. Atwater?”

“Yes, that is correct,” Atwater said. “I cannot testify about anything regarding how the hair happened to end up in the truck.”

“Then I have no further questions. Thank you.”

I turned back and looked at the clock. I had two minutes. If I wanted to get the jury back on track I had to think of something quick.

“Any redirect, Mr. Haller?” the judge asked.

“One moment, Your Honor.”

I turned and leaned toward Maggie to whisper.

“What do I do?”

“Nothing,” she whispered back. “Let it go or you might make it worse. You made your points. He made his. Yours are more important-you put Melissa inside his truck. Leave it there.”

Something told me not to leave it as is but my mind was a blank. I couldn’t think of a question derived from Royce’s cross that would get the jury off his point and back onto mine.

“Mr. Haller?” the judge said impatiently.

I gave it up.

“No further questions at this time, Your Honor.”

“Very well, then, we will adjourn for the day. Court will reconvene at nine A.M. tomorrow and I admonish the jurors not to read newspaper accounts about this trial or view television reports or talk to family or friends about the case. I hope everyone has a good night.”

With that the jury stood and began to file out of the box. I casually glanced over at the defense table and saw Royce being congratulated by Jessup. They were all smiles. I felt a hollow in my stomach the size of a baseball. It was as though I had played it to near perfection all day long-for almost six hours of testimony-and then in the last five minutes managed to let the last out in the ninth go right between my legs.

I sat still and waited until Royce and Jessup and everybody else had left the courtroom.

“You coming?” Maggie said from behind me.

“In a minute. How about I meet you back at the office?”

“Let’s walk back together.”

“I’m not good company, Mags.”

“Haller, get over it. You had a great day. We had a great day. He was good for five minutes and the jury knows that.”

“Okay. I’ll meet you there in a little bit.”

She gave up and I heard her leave. After a few minutes I reached over to the top file on the stack in front of me and opened it up halfway. A school photo of Melissa Landy was clipped inside the folder. Smiling at the camera. She looked nothing like my daughter but she made me think of Hayley.

I made a silent vow not to let Royce outsmart me again.

A few moments later, someone turned out the lights.

Tuesday, April 6, 10:15 P.M .

Bosch stood by the swing set planted in the sand a quarter mile south of the Santa Monica Pier. The black water of the Pacific to his left was alive with the dancing reflection of light and color from the Ferris wheel at the end of the boardwalk. The amusement park had closed fifteen minutes earlier but the light show would go on through the night, an electronic display of ever-changing patterns on the big wheel that was mesmerizing in the cold darkness.

Harry raised his phone and called the SIS dispatcher. He had checked in earlier and set things up.

“It’s Bosch again. How’s our boy?”

“He appears to be tucked in for the night. You must’ve worn him out in court today, Bosch. On the way home from the CCB he went to Ralphs to pick up some groceries and then straight home, where he’s been ever since. First night in five he hasn’t been out and about at this time.”

“Yeah, well, don’t count on it staying that way. They’ve got the back door covered, right?”

“And the windows and the car and the bicycle. We got him, Detective. Don’t worry.”

“Then I won’t. You’ve got my number. Call me if he moves.”

“Will do.”

Bosch put the phone away and headed toward the pier. The wind was strong off the water and a fine mist of sand stung his face and eyes as he approached the huge structure. The pier was like a beached aircraft carrier. It was long and wide. It had a large parking lot and an assortment of restaurants and souvenir shops on top. At its midpoint it had a full amusement park with a roller coaster and the signature Ferris wheel. And at its furthest extension into the sea it was a traditional fishing pier with a bait shop, management office and yet another restaurant. All of it was supported on a thick forest of wood pilings that started landside and carried seven hundred feet out beyond the wave break and to the cold depths.

Landside, the pilings were enclosed with a wooden siding that created a semi-secure storage facility for the city of Santa Monica. Only semi-secure for two reasons: The storage area was vulnerable to extreme high tides, which came on rare occasion during offshore earthquakes. Also, the pier spanned a hundred yards of beach, which entailed anchoring the wood siding in moist sand. The wood was always in the process of rotting and was easily compromised. The result was that the storage facility had become an unofficial homeless shelter that had to be periodically cleared out by the city.

The SIS observers had reported that Jason Jessup had slipped underneath the south wall the night before and had spent thirty-one minutes inside the storage area.

Bosch reached the pier and started walking its length, looking for the spot in the wood siding where Jessup had crawled under. He carried a mini Maglite and quickly found a depression where the sand had been dug out at the wall’s base and partially filled back in. He crouched down, put the light into the hole and determined that it was too small for him to fit through. He put the light down to the side, reached down and started digging like a dog trying to escape the yard.

Soon the hole seemed big enough and he crawled through. He was dressed for the effort. Old black jeans and work boots, and a long-sleeved T-shirt beneath a plastic raid jacket he wore inside out to hide the luminescent yellow LAPD across the front and back.

He came up inside to a dark, cavernous space with slashes of light filtering down between the planks of the parking lot above. He stood up and brushed the sand off his clothes, then swept the area with the flashlight. It had been made for close-in work, so its beam did little to illuminate the far reaches of the space.

There was a damp smell and the sound of waves crashing through the pilings only twenty-five yards away echoed loudly in the enclosed space. Bosch pointed the light up and saw fungus caked on the pier’s crossbeams. He moved forward into the gloom and quickly came upon a boat covered by a tarp. He lifted up a loose end and saw that it was an old lifeguard boat. He moved on and came upon stacks of buoys and then stacks of traffic barricades and mobile barriers, all of them stenciled with CITY OF SANTA MONICA.

He next came to three stacks of scaffolding used for paint and repair projects on the pier. They looked long untouched and were slowly sinking in the sand.

Across the rear was a line of enclosed storage rooms, but the wood sidings had cracked and split over time, making storage in them porous at best.

The doors were unlocked and Bosch went down the line, finding each one empty until the second to the last. Here the door was secured with a shiny new padlock. He put the beam of his light into one of the cracks between the planks of the siding and tried to look in. He saw what appeared to be the edge of a blanket but that was all.